The Endless Long Hot Summer: a Study of Urban Riots and the Kerner Report
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Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2016 The ndE less Long Hot Summer: A study of Urban Riots and the Kerner Report Taylor Anderson Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Politics and Social Change Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social History Commons, and the Urban Studies Commons Recommended Citation Anderson, Taylor, "The ndE less Long Hot Summer: A study of Urban Riots and the Kerner Report" (2016). Honors Theses. 115. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/115 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Endless Long Hot Summer:! A Study of Urban Riots and The Kerner Report By Taylor Anderson * * * * * * * * Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of History UNION COLLEGE June, 2016 ! Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………... iii Chapter One: A Literature Review………………………........................................... 1 Chapter Two: Racism and Urban Violence………………………………………….. 12 Chapter Three: The Police and Minorities…………………………………………… 33 Chapter Four: The Media and Urban Violence………………………………………. 58 Chapter Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 74 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….. 82 ! ii! ABSTRACT ANDERSON, TAYLOR The Endless Long Hot Summer: A Study of Urban Riots and The Kerner Report This thesis examines the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders’ (Kerner Commission) investigation from 1967 to 1968 of the urban violence that occurred throughout the late 1960s in the United States. The study focuses on the process by which the Kerner Commission’s research and investigation became the conclusions and recommendations found in the Final Report they produced. For purposes of analysis, three sections of the commission’s research and findings were examined—the relationships between urban violence and racism, the police and minorities, and the press and urban violence. The commission’s methodology was a combination of investigative fieldwork that included interviews and attitude surveys with African American communities, social science research, and direct testimonies from over one hundred and thirty witnesses. The Kerner Commission’s Final Report was well received by the media but quickly became controversial within academic and political circles. Generally, the Report’s reception can be characterized as too liberal for Conservatives and too conservative for liberals. In evaluating the culmination of the commission’s findings and recommendations into their Final Report, this thesis demonstrates several reasons why their investigation may not have produced the result many expected it to. The commission knew from the beginning that in order for their Report to have any influence that it would need to be generally accepted by the public and government. Producing a document that advocated for radical reforms would detract from the general acceptability of their recommendations. An important factor was the ! iii! context in which the Report was to be published. In 1968, Johnson was increasingly becoming more unpopular and the political climate was unstable. The President was not in a position to endorse a policy agenda that advocated for increased federal spending or the restructuring of major American institutions. Therefore, the Johnson administration attempted to limit the scope of the recommendations that the commission put forth. Lastly, while the Report is criticized for being inconsistent as a result of the strong moralistic introduction that precludes largely broad and abstract recommendations, this study argues that the commission’s inclusion of the introduction was done deliberately. The commission relied on the introduction to convey the spirit of their investigation without forcing the Report to endorse specific recommendations. By concentrating on attitudinal change within society, the commission focused on individuals rather than the failure of the Johnson administration and American institutions. ! iv! “If the soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.” This statement originally made by Victor Hugo was quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his testimony heard by the Kerner Commission in late 1967. Dr. King was alluding to the dismal state of race relations in late 1960s American society. The frustration of black America with racial discrimination and oppression culminated in the urban disturbances that erupted throughout major cities in the United States in the late 1960s. The riots captured the nation’s attention; they were collective violence that affected American society as a whole. In addition to public concern, major American institutions such as the government, the media and law enforcement could no longer deny that some action had to be taken. In response to these riots, President Lyndon Baines Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, on July 28, 1967. President Johnson gave them the task of answering three important questions regarding the urban riots, “What happened? Why did it happen? And what can be done to prevent it from happening again?”1 In the months after its formation the Kerner Commission met for forty-four days, completed field work in twenty-three cities, conducted 1,200 interviews, attitude surveys and other serious studies of conditions, and heard the testimony of one hundred and thirty witnesses. Although they knew their findings would be controversial they felt their answer was clear—“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”2 They felt that “great sustained national efforts were required to combat racism, unemployment and poverty.”3 The Commission released its final report to the public, a 426-page document !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1!Fred R. Harris, Otto Kerner, and the United States Kerner Commission. The Kerner Report: The 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 1-29.! 2!Harris, et al., Preface.! 3!Harris, et al., Preface.! ! 1! consisting of seventeen chapters documenting their findings and policy recommendations, in February of 1968. The report received extensive media coverage and reactions were mixed. The most notable reaction was from the Johnson administration. The President and the White House refused to accept the Commission’s findings or implement any of their policy recommendations based on their dissatisfaction with the Report’s findings.4 Unfortunately, the negative reaction of influential policy makers, such as the President and his administration, affected the trajectory and influence of the report. However, the Report was a benchmark in race relations and discussions regarding racial equality and policy in the United States. An examination of the riots themselves, the primary causes, the Kerner Commission’s research investigation and the conclusions found in the Final Report are important criteria to consider when assessing not only the relevance of the findings but also the sufficiency of their conclusions. Analysis of the Kerner Commission’s information gathering processes illustrates that the transmission of these major ideas about the relationships between racism and urban violence, police brutality and minorities, and the press and riots into a Final Report was a difficult progression. The Final Report contained an evaluation of the state of race relations in the United States based on months of research and experiential investigations and most importantly advised the nation in both speaking to the public and the federal government in ways to move forward. As a result of constraints inherent to temporary political Commissions and the sociopolitical climate at the time, the Final Report was a product of an immense task that featured expansive and abstract liberal ideas focused on individuals rather than the racially charged institutional !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4!Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman, Kerner: The Conflict of Intangible Rights, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 217.! ! ! 2! faults in American society. The adequacy of the Kerner Commission’s findings remains a major debate in historical scholarship. The initial perception and assessment of the riots were an important aspect of the way that the riots would be addressed in future policy decisions and racial opinions. The riots terrified the nation. The chaos and violence in so many cities won the attention of the nation and government officials. Many sociologists, economists, policymakers, and historians knew that it would be essential to the future of the nation to examine the political consequences of these events. While liberals, conservatives and radicals disagreed about the exact causes of rioting or the parties responsible, most agreed that the study of urban violence was vital based on its consequences for American society. Two main themes emerge from scholarship that studied the causation of the riots. The first was that the riots were an act of frustration as a result of the increasingly obvious relative deprivation experienced by the African